The Flameseeker Chronicles
by A human
Summary: The story of those chosen to fulfill the flameseeker prophecies. Rated T for safety.
1. The Last Recruits

The Last Recruits

**Disclaimer: This story is a collaboration between two Guild Wars fans (myself and a certain Gigas 13) who would love to own the rights to Guild Wars, but don't.**

**The Last Recruits**

The man walked down the streets of Rin, his stiff, purposeful bearing covering the chaos in his head. He scanned the streets, searching for a promising face. His nerves were driving him mad today, a frustration not totally strange in the week since the king had charged him with this little recruitment drive. _It figures,_ he fumed, _His Majesty HAD to give vague orders. "Bring me the strongest- no, the bravest in all Ascalon." What was that even supposed to mean!?_ How was he supposed to tell the difference between the strong men in the fields and mills and the truly brave men? And if he just opened a recruitment station how was he expected to weed out the eager and prideful from the brave ones who came to join?

A feeling of urgency only intensified the poor man's problems. Only to be expected, he supposed. After all, they were at war, and not a simple, quick war either. This war was constantly seeing Ascalon swallowed, verdant piece by piece, by the charr hordes. So far all he had to go on were scraps of information on numerous different people, most of whom he'd already checked. They had all been either the inflated stories of braggarts, the rumors of gossip circles, virtually ancient stories, or outright lies. All he had left to go on were a few more tales of a few more country folk.

Our sad recruiter looked over his notes, sighing as he reviewed what little he had on the last four before it was time to start scrounging for any recruits left or maybe just starting a sign up station and hitting the inn for a few.

The first was the little brother of an already successful soldier named Cynn. The woman had insisted on how her brother, though a little young at only 16 years, had a near freakish obsession with the universe, specifically how he could best get a thrill out of it, and would regard an actual battle as a truly enjoyable experience. Unfortunately, this fairly promising tale would have to wait until the man reached Surmia, so for now, it was on to the next hopeful.

The recruiter looked down at the next block of notes, which consisted of details gathered on a young mage living in Ascalon City. The mage, who had just turned 20 years old, showed promise in the art of fire magic. The Ascalonian army would need all the fire mages they could muster, and this one looked like potential army material.

_Or so the warmaster says,_ the recruiter thought, stifling a laugh. He knew this particular mage, had grown up with him in Ascalon City. It wasn't that he didn't trust Ornier; the mage was reliable in a fight. He just wasn't the sort to take orders. Putting thoughts of how Ornier would react when he learned he'd been drafted out of his head, the recruiter moved down to the next name on the list.

The third candidate was the reason the recruiter was here in Rin. He had been told to find a man named Verata and ask after a butcher's son. The son had supposedly been something of a frustration to the neighborhood's many pet owners, and he was told the area would be glad to be rid of this Krysun, and that the man was "useful" in a fight.

The least information was had about the fourth man. All that was known for sure was that he spent a large amount of time in the catacombs beneath Ashford Abbey with a pet strider one informant had sworn was named Bob. Supposedly, anyone who spent this much time in those pits couldn't be too terribly easy to frighten, and so would make a perfect soldier against the masses of charr.

Wearily, the recruiter set off to find the bravest in the kingdom. His journey was quiet, save for the over-exuberance of Cynn's young brother, Girith Alon. There was difficulty in half dragging the vehemently opposed Ornier Zantoren out of Ascalon city. And he could barely _find_ Avanth in the misty catacombs. Only Krysun came quietly, muttering about a chance to put some "bestial-at-best" brutes out of their misery. Looking around him at the bravest in all Ascalon, the saddened recruiter sighed once more. This couldn't be the most Ascalon had to offer. It would take more than this little group to save them...


	2. Finals

**Finals**

Krysun sighed. It had been a long day, and a fairly enjoyable one at that. Ornier's fuming was a little lighter than usual, and Avanth's pet had been staying away from him more than usual. The darkest spot of the day must have been Girith's attitude. He was surprised the immature little spark-head wasn't skipping with his own sort of manic glee at being given their first mission outside the practices of the Nolani Academy.

The months in the academy had been a frenzy of study, independent learning, and hurried friendships of those who still bothered with trying to have a social life through the work. Avanth had not been one of those like Girith, who went out of their way to talk up the other students. He preferred the company of the animals near the necromancer's training fields. One in particular, a bird called a strider, took an interest in him, and he in it. Before long, a pact was in place between the two, and Bob joined in Avanth's lessons as a familiar.

And the lessons were many, long, and had a sense of great urgency. Frustratingly, the rushed lessons had a tendency to cause accidents and tensions. During a basic life-siphoning course, Avanth lost control of his spell, and they had to stumble through a week with a…less competent substitute. Krysun also had a bit of an incident with the necromancer tutor Verata when Krysun refused to, as he put it, "defile the rests of the dead with so base and cruel an enchantment", or as Verata said, "raise a standard, basic minion".

There were good things too, though. Finally, it was possible to tell where Girith's hero worship of Ornier ended, as Girith was openly frustrated with his idol's choice of elements. "What's so special about fire?" began his usual argument. "It's everywhere already. Torches, candles, cooking, everybody's homes, there's fire _everywhere_. Show me the nearest house that uses lightning for heating, and I'll show you the only house in Tyria that _doesn't _have fire in it!"

And of course, even though the classes were hurried, and there were few comforts, everyone there was there to learn to protect their homes in Ascalon. And so they set themselves aside, and focused on their studies.

And they did learn…

And now four students were going through their finals. And Ornier Zantoren was extremely annoyed that he was still under the yoke of the military and being forced to do this. It's not like he wouldn't have done this stuff if they'd just asked, but for some reason, Adelbern seemed to think that he needed to conscript every appropriately aged boy or girl in the land for his army. The prince at least had the sense to try to talk people into something or inspire them to do it themselves before he went and grabbed them off the street.

As if they would even have had to _try_ to recruit Girith. The boy was young for this, only 15, and was intensely enthusiastic about everything. Ornier couldn't help but shake his head at the way Girith was at the head of the group with Rurik, the two talking excitedly about what to do when they finally caught up with the charr scouting party they'd been tracking all day, what kinds of magic were most effective against the monsters, and whether charr would be a viable source of food in case of emergency. At least Avanth looked like he was having a decent time out here.

And in truth, Avanth _was_ having a good time here. Sure, he'd rather have been exploring the catacombs with Bob, and certainly he would have preferred to have fewer of the prince's personal guards around, but a long day of wandering after a charr band through brush wasn't a bad compromise.

"Halt here." Rurik's voice became sharp and commanding. "Our trackers have just informed me that the charr we have hunted are caught in an old storage area just beyond here. Everyone ready yourselves, for they will have no escape, save through us. And that is one route they shall never take!" A cheer went up from Rurik's guards, not to mention Girith, who began to flourish his axe, but Krysun, Ornier, and Avanth saved their breath and simply prepared for the coming battle. Krysun pulled out his truncheon and focus, and began to practice the glyphs of the curses he had mastered. Ornier drew his sword simply, and warmed up with a few small fireballs. Avanth gave Bob a bit more seed, then closed up the bag and tried to convince the bird that that was all the food he would get until after the battle.

As the little force charged wordlessly in, the number of Grawl accompanying the charr surprised them. In fact, there were only a few charr in the group. Up near the back of the crevice there was a small ledge overlooking Ascalon City. On this small outcropping, three charr were looking over the area. The only three charr in the scouting party, in fact. The first fell instantly to a massive fireball lobbed by Ornier, while the other's dodged around the blast, one falling in another instant to Rurik's high-aimed axe swipe. The final charr swept into Girith, who parried the first blow, blew the attacker backwards, and proceeded to watch as the beast seemingly randomly sprouted viciously bleeding cuts all over it, and crumpled to it's knee as its muscles flashed and burned under the negative energy channeled by Krysun and Avanth. Bob quickly finished the rout, leaping on the charr's exposed back and handily perforating its neck with several quick thrusts of his beak.

After the crevice had been purged of any and all grawl and charr Rurik's guard sat down around a fire, celebrating a victory that came at the lowly cost of a few bruises from a grawl hammer or two. Ornier wasn't much for the celebration. He was standing on the same ledge the charr had held, looking over the land as they had, not so much looking for anything as giving his eyes something to do while his brain was busy with other things. Girith jogged up next to him, stopped, looked over the world for himself, and finally decided that a conversation might be nice.

"So, how do you think that went? I wasn't too pleased with it. You and Rurik and Krysun and Avanth all had the fun of getting the charr. I only got to knock a few grawl into some walls and fry one to a tender black. Say, do you think this mission is gonna take too much longer? I bet Alesia's missing Avanth. When is she going to figure out that the 'soft side' of him is just for squirrels and birds and things? And while we're on the subject of the group, I had this idea for you and me combining a few spells for a better-"

"Shhh." Ornier said quietly. "This doesn't seem like it's over."

"What are you talking about?" Girith said with a newly worried tone. "We've cleansed this little flophouse of all life that could so much as give us a welt if it bit us!"

Krysun, coming up behind them, joined in. "This area is nicely scenic, but there's nothing here for them to see that would let them know about our defenses. All they can see is the vaguest area of the city's tallest buildings. The best they can hope to figure out is that we have a city there, but they don't, know if it's a tiny little watch post or Rin itself. The charr _are _fairly stupid, so they probably thought we'd never notice them if the held a few bushes and walked right through town. There is absolutely no tactical value to a map drawn from here. These particular idiots probably got sent to map our defenses, and thought we planted these forests to slow them down, so they were about to map a few trees and say our defenses would burn easily. We're fighting barely intelligent dogs on two legs. Don't expect genius."

"Well," Girith began, "I never meant to say they were as smart as us, but there are so many of 'em, and it's only a matter of time before one of them manages to pull off something genuinely dange…" Girith followed Ornier's stare into the sky.

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF GRENTH'S TOENAILS IS THAT?!"

It was on that day the Charr found a way around the great wall…


End file.
